The Health Care Case

The Supreme Court's Decision and Its Implications

Features well-respected and ideologically diverse authors, some of whom participated in ACA litigation

Among the first scholarly books to address the healthcare decision, perhaps the most significant decision of the Roberts Court to date, with major implications for constitutional law, the Roberts Court itself, and healthcare

The Health Care Case

The Supreme Court's Decision and Its Implications

Description

The Supreme Court's decision in the Health Care Case, NFIB v. Sebelius, gripped the nation's attention during the spring of 2012. No one could have predicted the strange coalition of justices and arguments that would eventually lead the Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act's principal provisions. The constitutional case against the ACA was originally written off as frivolous, but after oral argument at the Court, many predicted that the unthinkable had now become likely. When the Supreme Court delivered its complicated and fractured decision, it offered new interpretations to four different clauses in the Constitution. This volume gathers together reactions to the decision from an ideologically diverse selection of the nation's leading scholars of constitutional, administrative, and health law. They offer novel insights into the meaning of the health care decision for President Obama, the Roberts Court, and the debate over constitutional interpretation.

The Health Care Case

The Supreme Court's Decision and Its Implications

Table of Contents

Contributors Introduction, Nathaniel Persily, Gillian E. Metzger, and Trevor W. MorrisonPart I Reflections on the Supreme Court's Decision1 The Court Affirms the Social Contract Jack M. Balkin 2 Who Won the Obamacare Case? Randy E. Barnett 3 A Most Improbable 1787 Constitution: A (Mostly) Originalist Critique of the Constitutionality of the ACA Richard A. Epstein4 The June Surprises: Balls, Strikes, and the Fog of War Charles Fried 5 Much Ado: The Potential Impact of the Supreme Court Decision Upholding the Affordable Care Act Robert N. WeinerPart II Lines of Argument: Commerce, Taxing and Spending, Necessary and Proper, and Due Process6 The Missing Due Process Argument Jamal Greene7 " and Health Care Reform Andrew Koppelman8 The Presumption of Constitutionality and the Individual Mandate Gillian E. Metzger and Trevor W. Morrison 9 The Individual Mandate and the Proper Meaning of Ilya SominPart III The Important Role of the Chief Justice10 Judicial Minimalism, the Mandate, and Mr. Roberts Jonathan H. Adler 11 Is it the Roberts Court? Linda Greenhouse 12 More Law than Politics: The Chief, the Neil S. Siegel13 The Secret History of the Chief Justice's Obamacare Decision John Fabian Witt Part IV The Decision's Implications14 Federalism by Waiver After the Health Care CaseSamuel R. Bagenstos 15 The Health Care Case in the Public Mind: Opinion on the Supreme Court and Health Reform in a Polarized Era Andrea Louise Campbell and Nathaniel Persily16 How Federalism Looks Now: Medicaid and the Nationalizing Effect of the Supreme Court's Old-Fashioned Federalism in Health Reform Abbe R. Gluck 17 Constitutional Uncertainty and the Design of Social Insurance: Reflections on the ACA Case Michael J. Graetz and Jerry L. Mashaw18 The Affordable Care Act and the Constitution: Beyond National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius Timothy Stoltzfus Jost 19 Medicaid's Next Fifty Years: Aligning an Old Program With the New Normal Sarah Rosenbaum20 Health Policy Devolution and the Institutional Hydraulics of the ACA Theodore W. Ruger

The Health Care Case

The Supreme Court's Decision and Its Implications

Author Information

Nathaniel Persily is the Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law and Political Science at Columbia Law School.

Gillian Metzger is the Vice Dean and Stanley H. Fuld Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

Trevor Morrison is the Liviu Librescu Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

Contributors:

Jonathan H. Adler is Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve School of Law.

Samuel R. Bagenstos is Professor of Law, Michigan Law School.

Jack M. Balkin is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law. School

Randy E. Barnett is Carmack Professor of Legal Theory, Georgetown University Law Center.

Andrea Louise Campbell is Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT.

Richard A. Epstein is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, New York University; the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution; James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, Emeritus and Senior Lecturer, The University of Chicago.

Linda Greenhouse is Senior Research Scholar in Law, Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School.

Timothy Stoltzfust Jost is Robert L. Willett Family Professor of Law, Washington and Lee Law School.

Andrew Koppelman is John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Northwestern Law School.

Jerry L. Mashaw is Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School.

Sara Rosenbaum is J.D. Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor, Health Law and Policy, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

Theodore W. Ruger is Professor of Law, Penn Law.

Neil S. Siegel is Professor of Law and Political Science, Duke Law School.

Ilya Somin is Professor of Law, George Mason University Law School. He is the author of an amicus brief on behalf the Washington Legal Foundation and a group of constitutional law scholars in NFIB v. Sebelius, arguing that the mandate exceeded the scope of Congress' powers under the Necessary and Proper Clause because it was not Robert N. Weiner is Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP. From 2010-2012, Mr. Weiner served as Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he oversaw the Government's defense of the health care litigation.

John Fabian Witt is Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law, Yale Law School.